In vehicle applications, fuel cell stacks may be required to go through more than 30,000 startup/shutdown cycles. The normal operation of a fuel cell stack involves the continuous flow of hydrogen into the anode side and air into the cathode side of the fuel cell stack. When the fuel cell is shut down, if the electrical circuit is open and there is no longer a load across the cell, unacceptable anode and cathode potentials may develop, resulting in catalyst or catalyst support oxidation and corrosion, and fuel cell performance degradation.